Harvest Monday October 8, 2018

Welcome to Harvest Monday, where we celebrate all things harvest related. Last week was a busy one here. My wife and I volunteered a couple of days for a local organization, flipping burgers to help with their fundraising efforts at the Evansville Fall Festival. I am guessing we cooked well over 1000 burgers between us, and none were consumed by us during the process either! In between all that, I spent much of my time digging sweet potatoes. It looks like it wasn’t quite as good a year as 2017, but I am still pleased with the results. I’ve dug 43 hills so far, and brought in 101 pounds of sweet potatoes. I have a few hills remaining I hope to dig this week. I plan to do a full review of them when they’re all in.

Before I dug the roots, I harvested a tubtrug full of the leaves.  There’s almost two pounds of them before I cleaned them up and got them ready for cooking.

I stripped them from the vines, and did a quick stir fry on them with a little added garlic and ginger. They have a mild taste and great texture, sweeter than spinach and with less of the ‘bite’. They were tender but not mushy, and I like how they hold their shape. They cook in just a few minutes too.

I also pulled a few radishes to go in a stir fry. This is a mini daikon called Mini Mak I’m growing for the first time. It’s a handy size, and these two were perfect. I have the bigger Alpine sizing up now too, and I plan to use some of them in kimchi.

Speaking of kimchi, the Korean peppers are still coming on. In the below photo we have Korean Hot on the left and Winner on the right, with a lone Ethiopian Brown Berbere pepper in the middle.

There’s still quite a few sweet peppers ripening, including the bull’s horn types Carmen and Escamillo. I also got a few of their cousins Cornito Rosso and Cornito Giallo. I roasted them a couple of times in a cast iron skillet, and that is my new favorite way to cook them. They have much the same flavor as when I grill them, but with less chance to burn them up like can happen on the grill. They’ve also been starring in salads and frittatas.

I got enough of the NuMex types Anaheim and Biggie Chile to roast them on the grill. After they cool I chop them up and freeze for use later. They are so much more flavorful than the canned green chiles, which I haven’t bought in years since I started making my own.

I got a big bucket of Kaleidoscope peppers too. They are supposed to be mildly hot, but this year they have almost no heat to them. These baccatum peppers have a sweet fruity taste, and I am going to pickle this batch. The pickled peppers find their way onto pizza and salads, and I also use them to make a red pepper aioli.

And I got about a pound of ripe Aji Angelo peppers. I have them fermenting, and I plan to turn them into a mild Sriracha sauce. I added a few of the Kaleidoscope to make it even milder. Aji Angelo is one of my favorite hot peppers, and the mild heat and fruity taste make it a versatile choice in the kitchen. I got my seeds originally from Michelle (From Seed To Table), and it is hard to find commercially. I’m saving fresh seed this year, and should have some available later in the year for sharing.

I’m growing two baccatum peppers for the first time this year, Bert the Chilli and Aji Pena. After getting a taste of both, I have to say they are a bit too hot for my tastes. I am pretty happy with the four mild baccatums I grow already, Aji Angelo, Aji Golden, Kaleidoscope and Malawi Piquante.

I cut two more winter squash from the two varieties that are left growing. It’s the first one from Rancho Marques, a landrace type from Mexico, and it weighed 14 pounds. This variety makes fruit of all different sizes and shapes, and a second vine has a squash that is long and thick in shape. Behind it is another Turkeyneck squash, which weighed 12 pounds.

The pole beans gave us another pound of NT Half Runners. This small planting has given us over 10 pounds of beans so far, and my wife and I have truly been enjoying them as often as possible. I’ve also put up quite a few in the freezer, where we can enjoy them this winter. It’s been a great year for beans, after a slow start with germination issues due to waterlogged soil.

Harvest Monday is a day to show off your harvests, how you are saving your harvest, or how you are using your harvest. If you have a harvest of any size or shape you want to share, add your name and blog link to Mr Linky below. There are no rules or regulations, and wonky veggies are always as welcome as the prize winners. And please be sure and check out what everyone is harvesting, or wishing they were harvesting!